THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD

Nothing says 'welcome' quite like flowers in expended tank rounds.Livening up the place, as only a Baghdadi could.photo by Buck Sargent

Those who do not do battle for their country do not know with what easethey accept their citizenship in America.-Dean Brelis, The Face of South Vietnam

Nobody likes you,Everyone left you,They’re all out without you,Having fun.-Billie Joe Armstrong, Homecoming

THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD A Buck Sargent Epilogue

As the dense fog of war clouded uncommon sensesAmidst a drumbeat of electoral media spin,Did the war Propheteers begin to swing for the fencesKnowing only on YouTube could a victory they win.

With the battles for dual capitals garnering nightly news playOnly then were homebound Strykers thus rerouted to stay,The Shinseki Shintoists, they still clamored for more troopsForcing us to jump through ever more and tighter hoops,An unchecked inferno we were expected to douseFutilely spitting on a flashpoint too late to salvage the House.

Though contentional wisdom had long since absentee votedA conflict "drifting sideways" having duly been noted,All over but the gloating and the measuring of curtainsThe Biennial Defense Review of the electorate most certain.

Rumsfeldian intransigence ran ultimately afoulOf a reluctance to neither escalate nor throw in the towel,Staying the course in force discarded as fundamentally flawedBy an atonal majority who’d rather make war on the DODThe enemy of our enemy are our friends it’s been called,Uncharted waters demand further study-grouped fodderMore or less boots to suppress those thugs of al-Sadr?

Profiles in discouragement whose concept of leadershipIs only to grumble and grouch,If have their say our forces we’d return right awayIn toto straight back to Ft. Couch.

Though if perchance they deliver a sliver of some long-AWOL oversightOf a conflict our own McClellans have so driven to distraction,Have we simply bought another round of the usual 20/20 hindsight?Bitter acrimony and pompous Capitol Hill intraction?It remains to be seen if the new Washingtone will be seriousAs class war traditionally the preferred combat experience,A broad mandate did resonate across a far-reaching strataAn election year cheered by Al Gore and Al Qaeda.

Having passed off the reins to the new head of their stateGreat pains have they taken to show our puppets they ain’t,Al-Maliki to Arbusto: I’m not "your man" in IraqJust ask the Sadrmasochists pulling the strings in his back.The rare enemy indeed have we had lined in our sightsDespite their daily exploding handiwork in this lopsided of fights,The sound of one hand being tied down -- a familiar refrain?Setting ourselves up for failure,Remember won’t get fooled again?

Forced to tiptoe ‘round Ramadan to dodge lingering offensesStill no rest for the wicked as they harden their defenses,When the dozens of bodies that surface anew mainlyServe no higher aim than above the fold of our dailies.

Not the best of Times nor the first of timesTheir torturous logic as a stab in the dark,A Tale of Two Papers in a turbulent eraFaulting our rejoinders for inspiring the terror. A full-court press levied upon public opinionHysterical headlines that often read like the Onion,"Nothing to fear but fear itself," their instructionIgnoring the wrathful clearly seeking our destruction.

Comparisons newly made between Tet and todayLeft untold & unmentioned: what it meant to that fray,For it was not in the trenches where Charlie prevailedBut in American parlors once support jumped the rails.

Those foolhardy boys again would have us turn tail in disgraceOne public negativity scene they’d wholeheartedly embrace:Repeating scenes of retreating choppers from another embassy roofOf the human costs of gratification they remain shockingly aloof,Hurry up and quit: the meme that dictates what is newsTheir best Stratego move to end the war,Still being for us to lose.

Al Jazeera "West" rates jihadi snuff films newsworthyTo them, propaganda: just what slanders the enemy,Those cable newsful idiots feigning surprise at the controversyOver aiding, abetting, and providing comfort to our anomie,Kept far afield from returning flag-covered casketsThey’ve stooped to lower passion plays of cause and effect,Surely a ratings bonanza in the heartland this must beFilm at eleven: soldiers shot through the neck.

Will we again see a conflict our fourth estate chronicles fairly?One of triumphs and/or heroismNot just base acts of terrorism?Combining cons of the present with stilted prose of the pastTo get us the hell out of Dodge and beat the horse to do it fast.

Watch them wait til ‘08 to abruptly notice we’ve not lostA heritable albatross quickly shed at a veritable modicum of cost,Saved up turgid praise for the inaugural gaze of a former First LadyA "Fiasco" soon downgraded from virtual certainty to a maybe.

* * *

As for the ones truly caught between Iraq and a hard placeHer people so tired of pandemic death and corruption,Of promised results from our sweep operationsFrustrations vented freely during foot-patrolled visitsBetrayed when rogue militias remain strictly off-limits.

Mahd squads of death roam free for Shia "protection"Their presence pinned on our failure to crush the Baath insurrection,Though neither side will back down until the other blinks firstA coin flip could settle whose deadly tactics are worse.Festering wounds over Mohammad’s rightful successorsHave lay dormant under a veneer formerly masked by oppressors,This sectarian bloodsport violently bubbling to the surfaceOf a Mesopotamian smelting pot precariously balanced on a furnaceWhere familial tribe feuds and millennial hatredsDo continue to vex the Joint Chiefs of the service.

Iraqi foot soldiers, statesmen, and constabularies,Have indeed grown in number as assure grinning four-star generals,Though when quantity over quality remain the goals a prioriThe only measurable progress: a steady uptick in funerals,And as the go-to Five-O in this disturbing domestic disputeWe’re still balming all-too-common haji death blossoms to boot.

Every angle of this tangle been slyly stoked by noisome neighborsIran, Turkey, Syria -- please, don’t do us any more favors,Each desperate to further a sense of martial lawless disorderLest the promise of self-government spilleth over their borders.

* * *

Three years and counting will tend to make realistsOut of even the loftiest and most committed of idealists,The constant drippity, pity-drip of antiwarrior defeatismDovetailing in accordance with UNaccountable elitism,All their tired Ugly American’t neocon trashingBetrays the true State of Denial: our Rubiconian crossing.

We’re we soon to flee the field, World Opinion would it laud usThe EUnuchs, the Mullahs, the Turtle Bay City Rollers…Once again would sing our praises and exultantly applaud us.But can we afford once more to project such vacillation as a nationAdding to Beirut and Somalia another "paper tiger" reputation?Perhaps herein lies a shortcut for upholding one’s grit,Reckon, What Would Jacques Do?Then select the path most opposite.

Clowns to the Left of usJokers to the RightHere we are,Stuck in the Middle with you.

As public support troopwires the next political third railSee: Freudian slips at our expense along the campaign trail,The condescenti assume smugly our mental fatuityTheir tolerance of our kind a bare naked gratuity,Though if ever they be willing to match IQ’s face to faceA heady challenge readily accepted any time, any place.

Would it that war is the Lord’s way of teaching Americans geographyAnd that only the mental homely could become "stuk n Irak,"This institutional second class citizen soldieryWas it not what volunteerism was meant in deed to redact?

Moxie warfare as proxy welfare?We thought our service was sacrifice,"Halp us," Jean Luc KerryKetchup to the best and the brightest,Until all can jet to Paris with our heiress meal ticketsThe proud rabble that man the pickets:¿Non, America’s finest?

Whereas some broods take leave to meander the ContinentA handful delay futures to shoulder million dollar equipment,Not necessarily a matter of job insecuritiesYoung adults often detour on the spiral path to maturity,As the sublime while away time between pubs, clubs, and hostelsOur rank and file are preoccupied with bloody hostile insurgencies.But within our life vested nation,The young and the listless,The failures to launch,This day cared generation,So vulnerable to the worst of the print media distortionsThat support less our cause than most late term abortions.

* * *

With our extension expiring and new return date drawing nearThe photo finish of Secretariat: to enact his Santa clause this year,We Sloppy 172nds -- of late Uncle Sam’s Choice --To generically clown sandbagging units of renown:"Ivy" league fobnobbing name brands of brothersFor whom 101 damnations could easily be voiced.

While it’s "Stryker this," and "Stryker that," and "Strykers go around,"But it’s "Please to stay behind, sirs," when there’s trouble on the ground.

Nearly gone twice as long as time served in the wombBilleted like cattle while Hang Man Walking stillProvided his very own room,Were this a divine trial by fire of the limits of complianceTesting our patience, our commitment, if not our defiance,All the good, bad, and ugly entailed with a surrogate male familyThen friends, Groundhog Year doesn’t even begin to describe it:

Stale eleven bravado,Fair-weathering wives,DearJohns@AOL,Frequent incommunicado,We Suck the Least: our clandestine motto,Latest of the BOHICAns: the story of our lives.

"Bend Over fellas, ‘cause Here It Comes Again…""That‘s a big ‘nay’""FTA""Laa laa shukran,"Popped smoke, cut sling load, done shucked our last magTagged out with the Cavalry left holding the Bagh.

* * *

In a headlong rush to cross more off the doctrinal list of to-doForced to swallow whole a vast commitment and tollThe size of which we’d be hard-pressed to chew,A firsthand recommendation: drawdown all great expectationsOur aim trained no higher than it should,And cease and desist from insisting the perfectRemain forever the enemy of the good.

The loss of good men can make one question the whySpurring a search for the answers for what did they die?On behalf of ungrateful nations have our kin repeatedly bledOver countless generations spanning acreage of war dead,But for those who have fought for it has freedom truly been tasted,On account of what otherwise would most assuredly amount toMere killing time well wasted.

The past is authored ultimately by the victors it’s saidIn lieu of pseudo-scholar gossip so often first to be read,We trust posterity will depict this vital period in our favorAs we’ll suffer not public scorn nor prattle scars of Vietneighbors.

This is the concluding Buck Sargent dispatch from the combat zone. (No really, he means it this time.) Final Tales from the Front is currently in development and will be posted within a few weeks upon arrival on American soil, after which Buck will be taking a well-deserved blogging hiatus to reconnect with his wife, family, and friends.

Regular progress reports will be forthcoming on the nascent documentary film project Give War a Chance. Continue to monitor American Citizen Soldier for updates. As always, Buck Sargent can be reached at americancitizensoldier@hotmail.com

He is thankful for each and every one of you and your unwavering support on this glorious Thanksgiving Day. Next stop: Home.

Buck...You are one heck of a soldier and writter. No doubt you could handle yourself, one on one or against a whole gaggle of political geese, with one hand tied behind your back. This writing should be posted for all to read and hopefully will reach many more than the lucky handful reading your blog. Best wishes for a good...make that an exceptional... homecoming and a sincere thank you for all that you have done. We will be watching for your next gig. :)With great respect,Annie & NeatieArizona

Could it really be true? My Darling is finally returning to my side?! I am completely overwhelmed -crying, laughing but most of all filled to overflowing with so much love to pour out on the most precious man in the universe. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your support, your kind words, your thoughts and ideas which have challenged, supported and entertainment one of our greatest Americans -my husband. Darling, Welcome Home.Love,Mrs. Buck Sargent

I cannot begin to tell you and all the other troops how very greatful and proud "I" am of all you accomplished. Sadly you fought against insurmountable odds, not on the field of battle, but the homefront. What is so very puzzling to me is why the nation as a whole are knuckling under to these "red" tinged destroyers of freedom and Democracy!!

Rest well weary soldier[s]. May you and yours forgive us one day. God Bless you all and keep you safe.

As a Stryker Mom - who now has sand in the snow :) I wish you and your wife a well earned time together but will keep my eyes out for more from you - You helped me a lot through this rough time - THANK YOU!!!A Happy Stryker Mom - they really are coming home!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so happy for you, your fellow soldiers and your families. You all have made us all so very proud. Thank you for a job well done. Thank you for your tremendous sacrifices and your fsmilies. God Bless you all.